credits, even though they do have the credits and they are missing the benchmark, they do not graduate. so that is quite frankly, the definition of "off-track." the definition of "off-track," is that it doesn't matter how many -- if they have met the credits, but they haven't met the graduation requirements, they are not "on-track" to graduate. so all of those students in the light green are actually really, in reality, off-track for graduation at 2014. it means that every single one of those students will need an opportunity to make up those credits or take those courses or else they will not graduate. so i think that they should be classified as off-track, because then we need to know -- because they will need

service. additional service, in order to actually meet the graduation requirements. so they are off-track. so i just wanted the committee to notice that the light green section means that they are missing one or more classes, but if they miss one or more classes, come 2014, they won't graduate. that is what "off-track" is because of the graduation requirement. i think we had a different graduation requirement before. we had the credits -- you had the credits, but you met the classes. this you could graduate. but this is specific course work. and so what concerns me is that if we -- i mean we should be considering them as off-track also, because half of the semester is already over and so they have a year and a half to

make up one class or could be two classes. so they will need extra services and we should be budgeting for those students. that is the only reason i mention. it thank you. >> thank you, commissioner fewer. >> i think you will see is that we label them on-track credits, but missing benchmarks, but we are also including them in all of our plans in terms of credit recovery and extra services that they are going to need as well. and some of that may be a 5th year, especially if they are beginning english-language learner students as well, so they have an opportunity to take the english classes. so we definitely have those students within the scope of our work for our plan. so the next part is what we have done is -- since last time we met -- we got all of this data, and we drilled down and to make sure that the school site had the same data. and that they were doing counseling conferences with

students. so all along of course these students have been receiving counseling support from their counselors, but we wanted to make sure it was done in a consistent way; that they were all getting the same information and that they were having a template to go over with them and their familis to show what they were missing and then when they would make that up. whether it would be during the school day, during their regular schedule, during an afterschool program, summer school or through city college. so we wanted to make sure all of the students have their information on their status and where they are with the credit recovery option. and so all of our school counselors received a memo of instruction that i included in your materials. a template, that i included as well, too. and then a tracking sheet. so they are reporting back to us when they are having these conferences. and so they are doing these conferences between now and november 19th. and so they are meeting with

students in each of those four categories. definitely in the students that commissioner fewer talked about, who are missing a benchmark, and making a plan with them for when they are going to make up those credits. and so that is occurring now and the counselors all have that information. the counselors received the names of their students under each of those four categories. so if i am a high school counselor, what i receive from my junior class was a list of all of the students who are in -- who are missing benchmarks. along with their program status, if they received special ed services or if their limited english proficient and also showing which class they are missing from the benchmark. so it shows whether it's math, english, social studies, science or pe. so they receive that report now that we have drilled down with the data. they have received that report for each group of students and

are now having those conferences with them. with the standardized format plan and also identifying when they are going to have those options. then they will be reporting that back to us, so if there is a school that is getting behind and the numbers are large, whatever, we can make sure that we target supports so those kids get that information. the next thing that we were thinking of and that we have started is that we want to make sure that we do outreach not just at the school sites, but in the communities where the stewt students live. we have had meetings to work with them to see where we could actually host some counseling sessions in the communities in november and december and invite all of these targets students and their families. so that they have an opportunity, if they can't make it to the school, or to get it in the school day, to hear this information in their community. and so the timeline for that is

november and december, where we'll be doing a series of community outreach sessions. and we're hoping to reach more families and students so question not only develop awareness of the graduation requirements, but make sure that they know what the credit recovery options are and what some of our community-based organizations offer for support. so far we have identified locations at the bayview y, the mission neighborhood health center, coleman and outreaching to a few other communities to identify locations and getting the word out as well. the next sort of action item that we want to do is make sure that we're expanding our credit recovery options. because of the budget cuts that i referred to earlier, while we increased our graduation requirements, we also had to

cut centralized evening school and centralized summer school. if we had not had the support of the city two years ago when these students were 9th graders and the foresight to say we're going to target in some dollars to offer summer school, those numbers that you see in the dark and light green would be vastly different. we had a thousand students who are current 11th graders take advantage of summer school when they were 9th graders and then we rolled it off and the city supported us again last summer. so when those students were 10th graders and the other 9th grade class received summer school and we're thrilled that the city is again supporting us, so we'll have summer school options for our current juniors, 10th and 9th grade. we have lot the state funding due to the state budget cuts

for our after-school programs in eight of our school sites. that is the funding that payed pays for the bulk of afterschool classes. so eight of our schools will lose that funding come december. so we're looking at ways that we make sure we have credit recovery options across the schools that is systematic. we haven't had a centralized evening school the last few years and it does make it difficult for students who can't stay at their home school. there are also courses exactly like pe that have a higher failure rate that haven't had an opportunity. we haven't had a credit recovery or summer school or evening school pe. so we will offer that that in spring and

summer including pe and biology. we also want to have three centralized evening school sites to offer those courses. we want to explore the opportunity to really partner with our community-based organizations. so that students could actually work on some of these courses when they are in their community, when they are at their program. and work through it either virtually new exciting online programs, the not the ones of the past, but the ones that are more interactive that we have seen success in. just to give another option to students and thinking about other options. one thing we found in our summer school sessions when cbos targeted certain groups of students in summer school, with my did see better outcomes for students had in that. at our last time we were at

select committee i believe sherman walton spoke to that and we would like to do something similar targeting specific groups of students and provide them the extra support that. is what we're planning on doing for the spring semester. finally in terms of immediate actions we want to make sure that we're keeping everybody updated and that we're being transparent and we have regular public report-outs. our next presentation is is at our school board curriculum committee on november 5th and we're happy to come back to select committee or any other venues that you feel is appropriate and helpful to continue a regular dialogue and status update on that. so i will go for questions right now. >> commissioner fewer. >> thank you, janet.

i have a question. are these online options, other classes or uc-approved? >> yes. it's a combination. so the only online provider that is crucially uc-approved is cyberhigh. and it's the one that is -- >> the most boring. >> the driest or most boring. there are other ones that are in the process of being uc-approved and can count for credits with principal authorization. we went through a vetting process and we have two online vendors who students find much more engaging and they have second language options, videos. you can listen. it's much more interactive way of learning. so we would like to expand those so that schools have more of an opportunity to use those. >> i know that it was a pilot

program at some schools. do we have any success rates on that? >> i don't have the exact data. it's something we could certainly bring back. we used oddsey before. we had a lot of success with that. and then aveneta has been used at john oconnell and that was the one they selected. >> if possible, i presented before the youth commission and the youth commission asked us specifically for the success rates of the targeted recovery options. so if we could get that information. how successful is summer school? passing grades and that kind of thing. how successful is night school?

how successful are the online options for students? let's see, what other things are we doing? i think those are the three options that we're looking at, is that correct? >> correct. >> so the youth commission specifically as a commissioner specifically asked for the success rates of those programs. and then i just want to say that they have been trained on what the recovery options will be? at their school site or away from their school in spite because really i haven't seen what the current recovery options will be at each school site or in the community. so i'm wondering if the counselors know and if they have been trained on it? otherwise, how can they direct the students to actually participate in them if they

don't themselves know. i think also that with some of these students this may just be what takes to get them back on-track, by saying that you need to take this and this and this, but for other students it's going to be much more hand-holding and time-intensive and therefore more resource-intensive. so i would like to see a plan for students that are much more labor-intensive, which may take a little bit more hand-holding. and then sadly, i would like to see realistic goal of how many we can actually reach and be successful reaching? so i would like to set a goal for ourselves and then see how close we can get to that benchmark. thank you.

>> thank you, commissioner. thank you, dr. schultz for the presentation. colleagues i know we have a number of members of audience who are here to provide public comment on this important item. i don't know if we have any comments, but unless there is objection, why don't we turn to public comment. normally i give three minutes to each speaker, but i want to make sure we don't lose our quorum. so if we could limit it to 2 minutes and if you could please come forward. let me read some of the cards. if any member of the public would like to speak, please come up. [ reading speakers' names ] please come up and go to the mic. don't be shy. you only have the entire city watching. [ laughter ]

only. >> good afternoon honorable supervisors and board of ethics commissioners. i'm kristin winn, district 6 youth commissioner and high school student. first and foremost i would like to thank the board of supervisors and board of education for holding this meeting. it's important for high school students and it's important for youth to graduate from high school with resources and for qualifications for going to usc or ucs. also recognizing there are many youth out there who don't know

where or how to find their way to resources even if they wanted to. and with this new a-g requirement, students are able to graduate with a guarantee that they will qualify for csus and ucs, but it's very alarming to see there are so many disputes who are off-track on graduating. and i would want my peers to have the support that they need. so if there were more resources, like how these resources were able to help me. we need to make sure that all students have the opportunity, resources and support that they need to graduate. and 2014 may seem far away, but it's these next two years and the support we may or may not get that will determine where our future will be. thank you for your time. >> thank you very much and we want to thank the members of youth commissioner for their tremendous service to the city. it's always great to see them here at chambers. we also have other speakers.

chelsea boyler. >> good afternoon, supervisors. and everyone. my name is brian. i am 18. i am from mig mission mission high school and from the neighborhood of the tenderloin. i am an english-language learner. i want all of the students to have an opportunity like me to have an opportunity in high school and getting to ucla or uc santa cruz. to achieve my goals i need to study really hard in my english. i put all my effort in two years to get my english to speak in public and talk to all

the people. now i can talk in front of everyone -- so the problem with my school is that we have seen a lot of kids that are playing around and they are not really focusing on the studying. so they are off-track. and that means that they cannot graduate from high school and cannot go to college. so i hope that they need to really focus on studying so they can graduate from high school. the only thing is that we need more services in the school like tutors and programs that the youth had more credit

recovery. thank you all. >> thank you. i just wanted to say that i was very impressed with the presentation and being an immigrant myself, i can till that there is no doubt in my mind you are going to go very far. thank you. keep it up. next speaker. >> hello honorable supervisors and board of education commissioners. my name is shackleford and the chairperson of the youth commission. we're really concerned about the issue and we voted to support supervisor kim's legislation to make sure that the youth currently not on track to graduate are given credit opportunities. i want to commend supervisor kim and the other co-sponsors and thank commissioner fewer and thank commissioner mendoza

for their work on this issue and their presentation. thank you commissioner fewer for following up on the success rates of the credit recovery program. it's incredibly important that as requirements are increased that the district can provide resources to support them. their requirements are important to getting san francisco's young people to college, but we can't set them up to fail. i'm glad that the counselors will be having the meetings and i'm a little concerned that they won't do it by november 19th, seeing that we're in the midst of college application season. but hopefully, that will happen before the next school year. at the moment our joint education committee, which works with the student advisory council is working on a resolution addressing the achievement gap in san francisco at-large because we feel like this isn't just an issue of this one-time increase in requirements. if you look at the numbers,

there are incredible disparities between communities and we think there needs to be long-term solutions to address the issues in our city's educational system. thank you so much for your attention. >> thank you very much, madame president. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is antonio. i am a community organizer and activist and i support causes that i feel worthy and i believe that supporting kids is a very honorable thing to do. i asked myself and some other folks why black and brown students are behind in credits? this is the main question, why are they behind in credits? if we don't know the reasons and what causes it, we cannot

easily find the solution. i come from a family of middle-class family and my mom she was a teacher junior high for about 37 years. i had an opportunity to learn more than the average student because i had the proper materials, proper assistance. so the kids coming from poor familis if they don't have the extra support, they won't succeed. that is why they are behind. there are more reasons. i remember of the last debate, the madame there was great and fired up. i was really impressed and i think we should have more people like you on school boards. people who are really inspired and care about the kids. more academic opportunities and tutors and more oversight to recover this problem.

because some kids they learn. based on cultural experience. for me coming to the united states, i did not know how to speak english. i only knew how to spate speak portuguese. thank you. >> thank you very much, next speaker. >> hello my name is [tkha-els/] from coleman advocates for children and youth and thanks for the presentation and your attention.

[speaker not understood] she went to her high school counselor and the counselor said -- she said why didn't you give me these credits? and she said i didn't know you wanted to go to college. i just thought you wanted to graduate high school. the reason why we pushed for this policy to go into place and the reason why i think the board of education unanimously voted for it and their original intention of this policy is that we graduate students college and career-ready not just to graduate high school and not just for low-wage job so they can make a choice for themselves as opposed to someone else making the choice for them; right? i think in saying that means that we need to look at c or better as the measurement of our success in preparing students and not just looking at a d; right? in the charts that were presented, it says that 26% of african-american students are

on-track with a d or better. that means that 74% are not. when we're looking eight c or better, it's actually 9% 89% of african-american. i do want to echo what sandy fewer talked about that we believe that we need to be talking about this as four levels of off-track; right? >> my boyler let me ask you a question to conclude your thought. >> thank you, so we just believe there needs to be intervention at every single level to make sure those students are back on-track. the last thing i want to say is that credit recovery and academic support to make sure students are successful is key. i know that the district and at the state level is dealing with

huge amounts of budget crisis, but this has to be a priority. we're facing a crisis and honestly it will be an embarrassment if we don't address these numbers now. thank you. >> thank you very much. please come forward. >> good afternoon supervisors, commissioners. my name is jose luis mujila and i work with transitional youth and we advocate on behalf of 16-24-years-old in the city. i was born and raised here. i went it all public schools and graduated from balboa high school. but unfortunately, i graduated with very few people that i started out in 9th grade with, as i think a lot of our young folks do. i actually just barely graduated and believe i was not ready for college at the time. i think it's the case for a lot of young people. so i just would like to speak to first of

all how excited i am and how i just want it to be known that we do action research and street interviews and focus groups with the young people. young people actually want high standards, which is kind of surprising. while some people may not always think that, but they want to be pushed and challenged. so it's exciting to know that we're raising the bar so that young people can graduate with those requirements to go to a uc or four-year school. but to the points that have been made before, i want to just echo the fact that we really, really cannot just raise the bar without also raising the amount of support and comprehensive supports really to support our young people. also i would just like to say, as much as we need the credit recovery, i hope we're able to prioritize and the young people that are the most off-track,

who are in the most need, especially i would like to highlight some of our young people that experience high trauma and violence in the community and the fact that you can't expect young people that experience those things, especially with what has been going on right now community, to succeed in school without real support to address the trauma and these type of issues. >> i will allow you to finish your thought. >> thank you. just the last point. , as much as this is exciting, i hope that also i want to bring to the attention the young people that are still not being addressed through this work. which is the folks already pushed out, young adults in their 20s that need to be reengaged in school. we have a real need for a